Tango is not only a fascinating dance, but also a fascinating idea, philosophy, culture, and lifestyle. In many ways, tango is a metaphor of life. The pursuit of tango is the pursuit of connection, love, unity, beauty, harmony and humanity, i.e., an idealism that is not consistent with the dehumanizing reality of the modern world. The world divides us as individuals, but tango unites us as a people and species. In tango we are not individualists, feminists, nationalists, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, etc., but interconnected and interdependent members of the human family. We are humanists. Tango calls us to tear down the walls, to build bridges, and to regain humanity through connection, cooperation, reconciliation and compromise. If you share this conviction, please join the conversation and let your voice be heard, which is urgently needed and long overdue.

Together we can awaken the world.

June 23, 2012

Tango: Historical and Cultural Impacts

Buenos Aires is one of the largest metropolises in the
world. One thirds of Argentina’s 41 million people live in Buenos Aires.
The city was built by the European immigrants. At the beginning of the 19th century, Buenos Aires was only a small town with a mixed population of Native Americans and Spanish, often intermarried. The Spanish brought in slaves with their
music and dances from Africa. During the second half of the 19th century, the Argentine government made a conscious decision to reduce the black
population and expand the white population, which led to the massive
immigrations from Span, Italy, and other parts of Europe to Argentina. By the end of the 19th century the original population of Buenos Aires has been completely swamped by the European immigrants. We can trace tango to 150 years ago to its African origin
from which the primitive form of the dance first appeared, but the main
inventors of tango were the European immigrants of the late 19th century
and early 20th century who built the modern city of Buenos Aires.

The fact that tango was created mainly by the immigrants is
significant. Far away from home, disproportional in gender, the immigrants were
the most lonely, homesick and nostalgic people. They came to the milonga to
dance the loneliness, homesickness, nostalgia and grief in them, to find a
shoulder to rely on, to quench their thirst for love, and to touch and be
touched by another human being of the opposite sex. Tango is their refuge. The
intimate, soulful, sensual and comforting nature of tango reflects and serves
their deep, inward, human needs. That’s why tango is danced in close embrace
in which the two partners intimately lean into each other, chest against chest
and cheek touches cheek. They communicate through their bodies their feelings, sentiments and interpretations of the music. Like the dance itself,
tango music is created to express deep emotions. Its rhythm is crisp, forceful
and easy to dance to, but its melody is supple, fluid and sentimental. Every
note or phrase is played with a “masculine” effect - strong, sharp and steady,
or a “feminine” effect - lingering, submissive and emotional. The two moods
intertwine and respond to each other, reflecting the man and woman in the dance. (See The Characteristics of Classic Tango.)

Tango reached its maturity and dominated the culture of Buenos
Aires between 1930s and 1950s. This period is known as tango’s Golden Age. That
was followed by almost thirty years of the Dark Age during which tango
disappeared. In 1955 a military coup ousted Juan Domingo Peron, the democratically elected
president. Peron had actively supported tango. The dancers aligned with him
were suspicious to the anti-Peronist juntas, who created a climate that
discouraged tango. (See The Styles of Tango.) As a result, people stopped dancing and musicians stopped playing
for the dance floor. The music produced in the Dark Age is largely for listeners and not dancers. The revival of tango started in the mid 1980s after the
restoration of democracy in Argentina. Since then tango has gained worldwide
popularity, and is now danced in almost every country in the world and almost
every city in Europe and North America.

As one BBC commentator remarked, “Tango contains a
secret about the yearning between men and women.” In many cultures, intimacy
between the opposite sexes is deemed sexual, and therefore is repressed
voluntarily or involuntarily. Men and women cannot be intimate unless they want
to have sex. In other words, such cultures do not approve non-sexual intimacy
between the opposite sexes. But Argentine tango represents a different view, or
culture, that recognizes and sanctions innocent intimacy. The Argentinians
are a passionate and intimate people due to its immigrant culture, and tango is a product of that history. The
triumph of tango, after all, is the triumph of its idea, which regards nonsexual
intimacy as decent, healthy and beautiful.

But, the triumph of that idea does not come without a cost. Many things
have changed after the Golden Age. The tradition has been suspended for almost
thirty years. The immigrants have settled down. The gender balance has
regained. Many old dancers have died. The entire young generation did not know
how to dance tango. The only tango survived the Dark Age was the stage
tango. As a result, the revival of tango was led by a group of stage performers,
who, in 1984, brought their show, Tango Argentino, to Europe and North America, where
they ignited an enthusiasm for learning their style of tango - Tango Fantasia, which
is different from the tango danced in the Golden Age.

The tango danced in the Golden Age is Tango de Salon, or
social tango. It is a popular dance suited to the tastes, needs and abilities
of the ordinary people. It is danced on a crowded dance floor for pleasure and not for show, and is administered by the milonga codes.
It is an intimate, feeling-oriented and improvised dance, typically danced in close embrace with considerable bodily contact between the partners. Its steps
are simple and compact, allowing the dancers to concentrate on the emotions stirred
by the music, the sensation and comfort of the embrace, the communication of feelings through torso contact between them, and the harmony of movements in
unison with the music. Dancing Tango de Salon is an intimate, soulful and
personal experience. What matters is how it feels and not how it looks.

Tango Fantasia, or show tango, on the other hand, is
designed for performing on stage. It is a highbrow dance involving
difficult steps and techniques not suited to the common people, but the professionals
with expert skills. It is a fancy, movement-oriented and choreographed
dance, typically danced in open embrace for broader movement possibilities.
Its steps are wide, flashy, dazzling, often dangerous and requiring a lot of
space to do. It is not intended to be an intimate, soulful and personal
experience, but an exhibition of fancy steps and showy figures to
impress the audience. Safety, comfort and user-friendliness are
not its concerns. It does not abide by the milonga codes and is not suited
to a crowded dance floor. What matters is how it looks and not how it feels.

Without the same historical and cultural background, the
Europeans and Americans are more interested in Tango Fantasia than Tango de
Salon. They do not have a sudden explosion of immigrant population crowding
together in one big city. They do not have a severe shortage of women. (See The Chivalry of the Milongueros.) Their
dance floors are not crowded. Their cultures do not sanction innocent
intimacy. The open-embrace style meets their taste. On top of that, their teachers are the stage dancers from Argentina. Before
long, Tango Fantasia becomes a fashion in Europe and North America.

Despite this, the tango fervor abroad rekindled the pride of the Argentinians for their traditional dance. Milongas are reopened. Portenos
return to the dance floor. Tango salons and tango clubs are packed again. Tango music, tango fashion
and tango tourism flourish. Buenos Aires once over becomes the Mecca of tango,
where dancers all over the world come to dance tango with the locals. But
foreigners quickly discovered that the tango they have learned at home is not the
same tango danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires.

Having tasted the intriguing close-embrace tango of Buenos
Aires, most visitors don’t want to go back to the open-embrace style.
Some decide to stay for good. Others return home to spread the message. Their
number increases every year as more and more people come to Buenos Aires to
dance tango with the locals. Trend starts to shift from open embrace to close
embrace in Europe and North America. (See From Steps to Feelings.) It may still take years for the
close-embrace tango to settle down and become the dominant style in these societies, but that will inevitably
happen, I believe. Tango is created to serve a human need. (See Why People Dance Tango.) Its form must meet its
purpose. What is external and fashionable may change, but what is internal and essential endures. As more and more people
savor the charm of close embrace tango, as milongas become increasingly
crowded, people will want to, and have no choice but dance in close embrace.
Eventually, what belongs to the stage will separate from what belongs to the
dance floor, again.

Here is an example of the tango danced in the milongas of Buenos Aires.